[Sca-cooks] Happy 4TH Of July!

[Prydwen]

I used to love the Fourth, before I moved to New Mexico.  Here in this dry
arid area, fireworks are legal.  So, from two weeks before the Fourth
throughout the remainder of the summer, our local fire fighters and police
have to constantly watch for brush fires, bottle rockets fill the night
with "the rocket's red glare," whistle and pop, and inevitably, kids get
burned.  I still delight in fountains, sparklers and snakes, but I
seriously wish the aerials were banned from all but public displays put on
by professionals.

Prydwen (crawling off the soap-box and strolling to the Rock and spa.)

At 10:05 AM 7/5/2001 -0400, you wrote:

>Good to hear you can legally pursue what Jean Shepherd used to call the
>Essential Thundering Report. The fascisti in the local government have
>pretty well eliminated all but the large, highly controlled, allegedly
>public fireworks displays, but none of us felt like dealing with the
>heat, the noise, and the crowd.

<snip>

>I had to explain to my wide-eyed son that yes, once upon a time,
>children all across America used to be able to buy fireworks and ignite
>them, personally, and that in New York City, the first firecrackers
>(theoretically illegal even in my day, but the laws were not
>aggressively enforced)  would pop at around 8 AM, reach a crescendo at
>perhaps 10 or 11 PM, and continue until three or four the following
>morning.
>
>Adamantius